1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for adjusting the coin passage of a coin handling machine by which coins are assorted or counted, and particularly to an improvement in the adjuster for adjusting the width of the coin passage in response to the diameter of the coins to be assorted to allow the coins to pass through the thus adjusted coin passage successively one by one.
2. Prior Art
In the prior art device, only one of the selection guides is moved to adjust the width of the coin passage, whereas the other is fixed stationarily. However, such prior art device has a disadvantage that the center line of the coin passage along which the centers of coins pass successively is deflected in response to the width of the coins of each specie to be selectively handled, occasionally leading to misalignment with the center of the accumulator tube for receiving a pre-set amount of coins. As a result, some of the falling coins abut against the wall of the tube at the deflected side to move downwardly while being inclined from the horizontal state from the top opening of the accumulator tube to the bottom thereof, the tube having, in general, a diameter only slightly larger than those of the coins to be accumulated therein, often resulting in falsely stacked coin cylinder including one or more coins overlapped one after another in the inclined conditions or resulting in blockage by a coin. In order to preclude the aforementioned disadvantage, there has been proposed an apparatus wherein both of the selection guides move in the sideward directions by the same amounts to be apart from or close to each other, whereby the width of the coin passage may be changed to adapt for a certain sort or species of coin while maintaining the center line of the coin passage to be aligned or coincident with the center of the accumulator tube, irrespective of the change in diameter of the coins to be handled at every operation cycles. Examples of such apparatus are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 26295/1977. However, prior art apparatus of such kind are of intricate construction, and can not effect delicate adjustments with attendant disadvantage that a coin of different species or sort having an approximate diameter as those of the coins to be accumulated in the accumulator tube tends to be mixed erroneously.